“It’s just Vegas. Even I can’t feel guilty in Vegas.”
“When you say you’re sure of these things, do you mean your special sensing ability has kicked in?”
“Besides, dead bodies are distracting. And I do not have a special sensing ability. But I can see with my commonsense ability. Mitch, if in one week you came in contact with seven—and I hope to God Bradone won’t make an eighth here—people who later turned up dead, you would see a pattern too. And if I were psychic, maybe I’d know the reason.”
“But they don’t have anything in common, at least most of them don’t.”
“Yes they do. One thing. Me.”
“What about Vegas itself? What about Evan Black?”
“He didn’t know Ben Hanley or Ardith Miller. But he sure had connections to the rest. Mitch, we’ve got to talk about Evan—”
“I really think you’re making something out of this that isn’t there. You’re always blaming yourself for stuff that isn’t your fault.”
“Good, fine. You believe what you want. That’s your right. Just listen to me about—”
“Wanna see my back?” He had the nerve to look smug.
She reached for a table lamp to lob at him, and the only thing that saved the superstar was the phone. Charlie always threw a fit when her writers used that ploy.
Bradone McKinley’s relief that Charlie and not Mitch picked up came in an exhaled grunt. “Don’t say my name. Act normal. I’m on a cellular in a rental car outside the Hilton. Come down as fast as you can. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going and don’t use the lobby door. The paparazzi and TV crews are setting up shop. They probably discovered that you and Mitch are a hot item upstairs. Remember the side door we used the other day, by the glass elevator? See if you can get there unnoticed. And Charlie, put on some jeans and walking shoes. Bring a jacket. We got work to do.”
* * *
Charlie almost walked around the white Jeep Cherokee with heavily tinted windows standing directly in her path, until it beeped at her.
“What are you doing in this? And why all the clothes? It’s hot out here.”
The astrologer was in a safari outfit—Banana Republic right down to the weird khaki hat. What role was she playing today? Much as she was drawn to this woman, Charlie had her doubts.
The Cherokee blasted out onto Paradise. Bradone switched on the air-conditioning and headed south. “Check to see if we’re being followed.”
“I thought you’d left without saying good-bye.” Charlie checked, to see them being followed by your normal three lanes full of cars.
“I was comped in the penthouse longer than most people. I’ve just moved to another hotel. I would have gone home, but I feel I must stay and help you.”
“Why were you comped longer than most?” They took Flamingo east to the 515 and headed north.
“Because I was smart enough not to lose my shirt fast enough. When are you leaving Vegas?”
“Tomorrow. Bradone, what is going on—where are we headed?” They were headed out of town.
“Charlie, you can’t leave tomorrow,” Bradone said fifty miles or so later. “You can move in with me. We have to get to the bottom of all this.”
“All this what?” They’d picked up 1-15 until they came to State 93 and turned north. No one was following. The landscape looked like it always did when you left Vegas in any direction—bleak.
“All this murder. Don’t doubt me now. You need me.”
Charlie told Bradone about Ardith Miller and the unknown threatener on her E-mail and about getting called into the security room at the Hilton. “Zelda, the dealer, told Eddie, the floorman, that I knew—I’m assuming about Ardith. And that was it. I was behind closed doors with threatening suits. I know she’s dead.”
“Charlie, I realize it sounds unlikely, but it is possible that all these deaths are not connected. Most of them surely, but not all. Was Ardith’s death what they questioned you about? These threatening suits?”
“They seemed even more interested in what might have been missing from my room after the search.”
“And was there? Anything—”
“Not that I could see. My computer and cash were still there.” Not to mention two zillion pairs of panties. Better I should have packed all my shoes so the cat couldn’t have fixed them. “I figure someone was looking for a device of some kind I could have used to turn off the lights at the Hilton that night, so somebody could rob the casino.”
“Anybody could cut wires or pull switches, couldn’t they?”
“Not that selectively, I wouldn’t think. Given that the lobby and casino clear through the sports-book area are on one electrical system, that outage followed me that night. From the marquee outside right up to my room. Most of the building and attached convention center weren’t affected at all.”
“The penthouse wasn’t and the Star Trek addition—that’s true. But Charlie, the Hilton has made no statement as to the amount of money stolen. Metro does not appear to be searching for the robbers. It’s all being quietly ignored. Why isn’t the press hounding them about it?”
“Yeah, why isn’t the Hilton heist page-one news?”
“Precisely. There’s something going on here far stranger than your happening to pick this week to come here on vacation. It’s bigger than you. And it’s not your fault. But you are liable to be swept up in it anyway.”
Like, I already am. “What’s going on?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me, Charlie. That’s why we’re heading for Area Fifty-two—”
“Fifty-one.”
“Oh, right. Groom Lake, whatever.” The floppy hat and huge sunglasses hid too much of Bradone’s face.
Not only was there nobody following, they didn’t meet anybody. “How is it you know the way so well? Bradone, have you been here before?”
“Actually, I have—but I wasn’t driving. You’re going to have to help me watch for a town named Alamo.”
“On this road, you could miss a town named anything.”
“There’s some bottled water in that grocery bag in the backseat and some fruit and sandwiches, when you’re ready. I’ll have an apple and water, please.”
There were pillows and blankets on the backseat too. “That’s why the jackets and comfortable shoes. You’re planning to spend the night up there.”
“Probably safer for you there than in Vegas.”
“Bradone, I really do have to get home and back to work. I appreciate your wanting to help me, but I can’t spare the time. I might not be safe in Vegas, but I know I’d be safer in Long Beach than at Groom Lake.”
The astrologer leaned into the wheel, as if eager for adventure. “What if that threatening E-mail letter was written on your computer by whoever searched your room?”
Any other day, an adventure with Bradone McKinley would be a blast. But not today. Not after seven dead bodies—assuming Ardith was dead. Not after watching Emily Graden, holding the small hand of one of her sons, walk in the funeral procession behind her husband’s casket. “With my software, there’s no way to write a letter to yourself, to the in box. Anything you write on it goes in the out box.”
“I imagine some hacker could figure out a way quite quickly, but, disregarding that, someone could bring in another computer and E-mail you.”
“I don’t see that as a reason for our having to come up here and spend the night.”
“If they were looking for something in your room that would turn out the lights at the casino, they must have been looking for some kind of high-tech device. Charlie, you said Evan was one of those masked burglars we saw on his film.”
“With Mel shooting it. And probably Caryl and Toby too. Evan had to be the one snuffing out the guy’s lighter. Toby picked us up when we left the burning plane on the desert.”
“And they dropped you off at the Hilton lobby and the lights went out as you moved through the building.”
“It was more like just behind me. But I don’t have a
device. Maybe they found it.”
“Maybe they slipped something in your purse or clothes that shut down the electricity selectively.”
Charlie turned out her purse in her lap and fingered everything before putting it back in. “Another of Pat Thompson’s goods delivered. Everything seems to come back to him.”
Detective Bradone laughed, took a crispy bite of apple, and gunned the Cherokee toward Alamo. “This case is beginning to come together, Charlie.”
Charlie had the uneasy thought that no one but the astrologer knew where she was at this moment. Or where she was going.
CHAPTER 27
THERE WASN’T MUCH to Alamo, where they stopped for gas and directions, the latter not adding measurably to Charlie’s confidence in this trip. A few miles up the road, they turned off at Ash Springs—a few house trailers. A Texaco station—closed. Not a car or a soul in sight.
“What do people do out here to keep from going nuts?”
“Maybe they eat. Way past time for those sandwiches. Let’s have the chicken now and save the roast beef for dinner.”
“Bradone, I have to catch that plane tomorrow.” But Charlie pulled the bag over into the front seat. Sliced baked chicken breast with some kind of Yuppie sauce instead of mayo, with nut slivers and sprouts, shrooms and black olives. It was delicious, but having anything to eat out in this wasteland would have seemed a luxury.
Scraggly, stunted Joshua trees flew past the Cherokee and sickly cactus topped with bunches of long spikes gathered at the bottom and splayed outward like a bouquet of swords.
“So, Evan and company somehow managed to put something in my purse or on me when I blacked out, and it shut off the lights so they could film themselves robbing the casino, and it came from Groom Lake. Smuggled out by Patrick Thompson.” Charlie hadn’t found anything in her purse. “Bradone, we can’t get anywhere near the place and wouldn’t know what to look for if we did. We are not detectives. This trip is just going to involve us further in what you yourself termed ‘something bigger than we are.’ We’re totally out of our league and should leave it to the professionals.”
“Which professionals? The ones who ordered Patrick’s murder? Or the police, who were so sure he was a silly tourist who jaywalked under that car? The casino suits, who seem more interested in how the lights went out than what happened to the money? This trip gets you out of Vegas.”
High-voltage power lines and desolation lined the road. Far away, bumpy rock mountains surrounded them.
“So will that plane tomorrow.” A desert’s lack of trees was stunningly apparent here. So boring, Charlie wanted to fall asleep.
“When does it leave?”
“Five something.”
“No problem. We’ll have you back by then.”
“Bradone, when were you here before, why, and who with?”
“How do you know I was with someone?”
“You said you weren’t driving, and you had to ask directions in Alamo.”
“See, you are a detective. I was here with a group of astrologers on a field trip. Aren’t these sandwiches good? This is an onion-dill bread that’s so hard to find anymore. There’s this wonderful deli—”
“We’re beginning to sound married.” Every mile closer to the dreaded secret installation made Charlie’s mouth drier.
“Have some water. You may be dehydrating.”
A smoggy haze at the base of the bumpy rock mountains cut them off from the desert floor, appearing to levitate them. There could be a big power plant nearby … or something even more suspicious.
Charlie decapped a bottle of lukewarm liquid—springwater, of course. Amazing how many springs had cropped up since bottled water became the rage. “Why do we have to stay all night?”
“Because night’s when you can see things in the dark. The lights and everything. And I want you to get close enough to maybe see what made you black out. Like the lights did at the Hilton.”
“It wasn’t really black.”
“It was orange, wasn’t it?”
“Did I tell you that?”
Ugly landscape. Worn-down mountains. That ground layer of haze couldn’t be moisture. So many dust devils. Maybe it seemed like so many because she could see forever. Charlie didn’t feel comfortable in wide-open spaces.
“You didn’t have to.” Bradone laughed for no reason. This crazy woman could enjoy herself anywhere. “I’ve been here before, remember.”
“It happened to you? You saw the orange light? But I was in a plane.”
The vegetation grew relatively lush as they approached the summit of the first mountain range. But the valley on the other side was back to dust devils and hardscrabble.
Their paved road stretched across the valley ahead in a straight line. They met one car leaving the valley as they entered it.
The sides of the road were strangely free of broken beer bottles and trash. But a sign with a litter barrel, signaling there was one coming up, stood riddled with bullets.
More frequent were the yellow signs warning OPEN RANGE and featuring the profile of a feisty black bull, reared back as if he was cocked and ready to go. They came across one huge red bull for real. He gave them a grouchy stare.
Charlie didn’t know she’d dozed off until a roaring sound joked her awake. The car swerved all over the road. “Did we hit a bull?”
“No, but we’re lucky we didn’t crash into something. I went to sleep at the wheel.”
“But that sound—”
Bradone pointed ahead where something rose into the air on a plume of smoke while she fought the Cherokee to a safe landing on the shoulder. “God, I’m sorry. You were having such a good nap, I didn’t realize I was too. Whatever that thing was, it may have saved our lives.”
“Let me drive for a while and you can sleep,” Charlie offered. Let me get behind the wheel and turn this baby back to Vegas.
“Thanks, but I’m fine.” Bradone’s smile seemed to know that’s what Charlie would do. “Rachel’s not far, and after that encounter, adrenaline alone will keep me up and running for hours.”
“That was no flying saucer. I don’t think they smoke.”
“Some military aircraft, more likely. He sure came in low. Lucky for us he did.” They scanned the skies for others.
But the only things on this road were dust devils and scattered cows watching them with suspicion. Then a gravel road stretched across the valley in a straight line to the next low heap of mountains. A dust plume followed a vehicle many miles off.
“I don’t see how you could hide anything out here. Can’t even find a private place to pee.”
“Hang on, Rachel’s just ahead.” The Cherokee passed up the graveled road and stuck to the blacktop.
“I can see for a hundred miles and there’s no town.” Charlie was only partly wrong.
* * *
They sat staring through the Cherokee’s tinted windows at the Area 51 Research Center across the road. The Area 51 Research Center was a permanent mobile home house trailer with a pickup parked at its contrived wooden porch. Two tall antennas, a satellite dish, three wandering cows, and twisted metal wreckage served as lawn ornaments.
“Oh, come on, Charlie, you’re too young to turn off interesting experiences. This whole place is a hoot.”
This whole place was a few dusty mobile homes with a couple of clapboard buildings thrown in for good measure, most of them acres apart.
“This is a long way to come for a hoot. Bradone, I don’t want to meet up with that orange thing again, okay?”
But Bradone slammed the Cherokee’s door and crossed the road, taking the keys with her.
Charlie raised dust when she hit the dirt.
Why do I get involved with people like this? I was sure she was an unusual and interesting woman. Instead, she turns out to be a nut, and here I am at the end of the earth with her.
I want to go home. I don’t like this.
Well swell, when you figure out how, be sure and let me know. r />
By now, Charlie too had crossed the road. The trailer home next to the nut institute advertised alien T-shirts by hanging them outside as lures. A cow ambled over to take a lick at one.
Five cows, Bradone, waiting for her on the research center’s wooden porch, and Charlie the gullible were the only living things moving in all of Rachel, Nevada.
Whenever Charlie left the fiction that was Hollywood to reassure herself in the real world, she found the real world stranger than fiction.
Inside the Area 51 Research Center trailer, a little guy dressed like a truck driver sat glued to a computer screen, a phone receiver tucked between a shoulder and an ear. “Be with you in a minute,” he mouthed, then said to someone on the phone, “Yes, sir, there’s close-ups of the base, aerial and satellite pictures, and topo maps. Yes, sir, Visa and MasterCard.”
All the while, his fingers flew over the keyboard doing something else because he had to switch files to key in the guy’s order, address, and credit card number.
Maps and photos clung to the ceiling and the walls above bookcases. A table in the middle of the room offered books, pamphlets, and UFO newsletters—stacks of them. No pictures of big orange things.
A normal-appearing woman in a midcalf dress and tennis shoes stepped out of a back room with still more stacks of stuff, and something brushed against Charlie’s leg and stepped on her foot.
At her gasp, the truck driver stood to look over his desk to the floor at her feet. “Name’s Underfoot ’cause that’s where he lives. He’s from Mars, isn’t he?”
The woman stacking stuff under the table paused to think, then shook her head. “Venus, I’m sure. He’s a she.”
Meanwhile, Underfoot had fallen madly in love with Charlie’s socks. Bradone picked up the black-and-white cat and it fell madly in love with the stargazer’s throat.
She bought a booklet and several maps from the guy who dressed like a truck diver. He swiveled in his chair to look out the front windows at the white Jeep Cherokee across the frontage road. “Sure hope you nice ladies aren’t planning to take that ‘over there.’” He nodded in some vague direction. “Because ‘over there,’ they know their own.”